Livernotwurst

And all.

Is right.

With the world.

Once again.

(Dumb dog.)

(Welcome home, Mitten.)

The Deadly Garden

Ah, the eternal blogging conundrum: tell the story NOW, or tell it WELL. You cannot do both, what with the lack of sleep and excess of brain matter slowly leaking out of your adrenaline-sapped skull, and death is not an option, though continuing to send out short hysterical ampersand-filled updates on Twitter is.

(Wait, let me first tell you how much it bothers me when I have to sacrifice proper AP Style to make something fit on Twitter. SO MUCH, is how much it bothers me.)

What the hell, let's try "NOW." Sloppy storytelling, ahoy!

So while none of this will be any great revelation to anyone who reads me on Twitter...

(Wait, is that right? Do you "read" Twitter? I should say "follows me on Twitter," right? That just sounds kind of creepy and invasive and OMG LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU! IT'S...THE INTERNET! AAAAEEEEIII!)

Sorry. Right. Anyway. My dog kind of almost died this week. Of liver failure! Do you know what the primary symptom of possible liver failure in dogs is? Vomiting! You know, because they never just vomit all the time for any other reason, like maybe they ate too many paper towels. Oh, heavens no.

I think I mentioned back...uh, awhile ago (gestures lazily at the archives) that Ceiba had a Day o' Mystery Puking. Just one day. Puking. Everywhere. Everything. And then right around the time when I started to think that MAYBE I should start thinking about finding my shoes and her leash and ehhhhhh driving to the emergency vet (because it was on a Sunday. it is ALWAYS on a Sunday. my pets need some schooling about honoring Our Lord's Day.), she stopped puking. And started eating and drinking water and running around and generally being a spastic pain in the ass. And thus, I declared her HEALED! and I'm pretty sure my brown shoes are still under the couch somewhere.

But this week it became increasingly clear that she was not healed, but was perhaps getting sicker. I pulled her food and the cat's food (AKA the food Ceiba actually eats) and offered her some matzo (don't laugh, matzo will fix your shit up right in no time, Bubbe-style) and made a vet appointment and then proceeded to spend the entire evening diagnosing her with stomach cancer, emailing Samantha frighteningly detailed descriptions of dog poop, and once again pondering the location of my shoes. I mean, I left the house that day, right? I was wearing shoes? God, I hope I was wearing shoes.

I decided against the emergency vet, as I knew they'd examine her, admit her, promise to keep her comfortable and fluid-packed, and give her an x-ray...the next morning. And that x-ray would cost three times as much as the x-ray we'd get at the regular vet...the next morning. And we know this first-hand, from previous middle-of-the-night leg-breaking experience. (2005. October-ish. You...look for it. I'm tired.) Plus...it was SO TOTALLY STOMACH CANCER. What is the poooooint, she's already done for, woe, WOE!

ANYWAY, OH MY GOD, GET TO THE POINT, STOP NARRATING MINUTIAE THAT NOBODY CARES ABOUT. I took her (and one precious little turd in a Ziploc baggie) to the vet and blah blah x-ray and bloodwork and holy fucking elevated liver enzymes.

("Did she look yellow?" you are probably asking. "No," I say. "She looked...reddish. Kinda furry. Also, I didn't really check.")

So Jason and I both turned to Dr. Google and started our House M.D. spin-off as we each tried to find out what it all meant and I basically kept looking up "liver cancer" while Jason looked up slightly more USEFUL things, like toxins that could damage a dog's liver and suddenly he was all, "EUREKA! Go check the ingredients on the bags of fertilizer downstairs!" And I was all, "I am downstairs. I don't see any bags of fertilizer." And he was all, "I meant the basement." And I was all, "Then you should have SAID the basement, God."

A couple weeks ago Jason started fertilizing all the tomato plants in our container garden on the back deck. We have both shooed Ceiba away from the plants multiple times since then, generally assuming she was hanging around them for nefarious Digging Purposes. Turns out she was eating the goddamn fancy specialized fertilizer, which in addition to SUPER TASTY THINGS like chicken feces and ground-up bones, also contained cocoa meal and copper. Both of which are ridiculously toxic to dogs. But hey! Our tomatoes are to DIE FOR.

I called the vet in a panic to let him know about our breakthrough -- assuming, of course, that they were probably mere seconds away from initiating the exact wrong treatment for the toxicity that would have disastrous effects, or at least cost us ANOTHER $800 -- but when the receptionist answered and did that thing where they said something like, "Hello, Animal Hospital, is this an emergency?" I went on auto-pilot and said, "No."

And then I said, "Wait. Shit. Yes! It IS! It IS an emergency! I HAVE ANSWERS! LISTEN TO MEEEE."

And then a whole lot of boring stuff happened and the next thing I knew I was typing this exact sentence here.

Ceiba is still at the hospital, getting her system flushed. Also hoping to squeeze in a pedicure and maybe some eyebrow waxing. Today's bloodwork showed that her liver levels are continuing to climb, but she SEEMS better. Bright-eyed, wiggly-stump-tailed, and she managed to eat some kibble and keep it down. So the vet is hopeful that the bloodwork is a lagging indicator and that her liver IS repairing itself and not failing. If her levels start going back down, we can bring her home. If they keep going up, I. Well. I will HURT THINGS. TOMATO PLANT THINGS.

Not a day goes by when I don't get thoroughly annoyed by that dog and/or threaten to skin her into a mitten. The mail slides through the slot and she loses her goddamn mind and barks and wakes up the baby and yap yap yap and SERIOUSLY. A MITTEN. OR HALF OF AN EARMUFF.

But now the mail comes and I brace myself for the racket and it doesn't come and it's not as peaceful as I thought. It's sad. I keep staring underneath Ezra's highchair after meals in complete and utter bafflement, because what the FUCK is up with that mess? What's with all this food? Who's going to clean that up? That's disgusting.

I miss the little batty-eared jackass. I hope she comes home soon and well.

Weekend Vignettes

For reasons that I believe can go mostly undocumented, we thought the dog had salmonella on Saturday. We found stray mussel shells from a disastrously ambitious dinner scattered in the yard; puddles of sick scattered pretty much everywhere else. She's actually just fine, but I just wanted to mention it anyway because I had to clean up a LOT of barf. You know. Just in case Ceiba ever reads this website one day. I cleaned up your barf, and I didn't like it. And now you never call! Ingrate.

*They ALL DIED before we could cook them. I set them on a paper towel for ONE MINUTE and every goddamn mussel decided to commit ritualistic suicide rather than face the hot pan of death. I was going to drown you in WINE, you bastards. WINE. We should all be so lucky to die such a death.

***
In other best-left-to-the-imagination news, we have a mouse in our kitchen. And clearly, the most useless-ass pets EVER.

***

Scene: Every Saturday Morning In Our House, Ever

Jason: Anything you want to do today?

Amy: I want to go to Ikea.

Jason: We're not going to Ikea.

Amy: (dramatic flailing)

Fin.

***

You probably know by now that I eat pretty much everything. Food is my hobby, since I don't know how to knit and dislike standing for long periods of time. I'm actually trying to think of something that I won't eat. Wait, okay, I've got it: raw onions, Cool Whip, head cheese. Tongue as long as it still resembles a tongue. I used to not eat rabbit -- because you know, bunnnnnnies! -- until we moved to the suburbs and a goddamn rabbit ate all my flowers and now I will eat the hell out some rabbit. I will eat that rabbit, if my dog ever stops gnawing on diseased mussels long enough to catch the stupid thing. (Hey, here's a recipe!)

Saturday night I ate pork cracklins for the first time -- fancy cracklins, apparently, since they were served on a charcuterie board alongside wee little pickles -- and for the first time in ages I was completely flummoxed by a food item. It was salty, crunchy and aggressively unhealthy -- my top three most favorite adjectives for food -- but OH MY GOD, IT WAS SKIN, RECOGNIZABLE SKIN, THERE WERE VISIBLE HAIR FOLLICLES. I could FEEL the skin-like texture on my tongue, I was Homer Simpson, sampling from the regenerative bacon buffet in the Garden of Eden.*

So instead of eating them, I lined a few up on my arm and asked Jason to get another few orders because the restaurant was chilly and I wanted a cardigan. Jason was all, "give those back, they're delicious."

*If you know what I'm talking about here, congratulations! We can be friends. We'll eat some deep-fried skin and then go get ice cream.

***

On Sunday, we went to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Noah loved everything about it, except for the animatronic Chuck E. Cheese, whom he eyed warily from the table, nervously eating bites of pizza. When the costumed Chuck E. Cheese (who was missing one furry glove for most of the proceedings) showed up, we had to retreat to a safe distance.

Noah: THAT BUNNY NEEDS TO GO AWAY.

Amy: He's a mouse, sweetie.

Noah: THAT BUNNY MOUSE NEEDS TO GO HOME.

***

As we drove home, Jason and I had a 20-minute unironic conversation about minivans and the many, many attractive features they offer. We're certainly not in the market for a new car or anything, but Jason rode in his coworker's Odyssey and like, maaaaaan, that thing was sweeeeeet. You don't even have to fold the stroller or anything. I remembered the same thing about a friend's minivan in a fit of retroactive lust, shaking my head at my naive young ATTITUDE towards minivans, back when I knew NOTHING about the world and what happens to all your "adequate cargo space" once you have two children.

Amy: I mean, just THINK of all the stuff we could buy at Ikea!

***

We never made it to Ikea. We went to the Big Box Baby Store instead and bought additional baby gates, because our 9-month-old does not have the sense God gave a bunny mouse. While shopping, I was approached TWICE about the Ergo carrier and whether I liked it (yes, oh God, yes), what age I started using it (31) (haaaa, I'm an ass), and then approached again by someone trying to decide between two different floor gyms and which one was better (is it for your baby? no? okay, get whatever one blinks and makes noise.)

Less than an hour after that, we stopped at Whole Foods and a timid young thing in high heels asked me what the difference was between brown eggs and white eggs, and if she hard-boiled the brown ones would they like, be the same? With a white part and a yellow center? She then admitted that this was her first grocery-shopping trip out on her own, and I noticed that her shopping list contained the instruction to "open egg carton and check for broken shells."

Amy: Wow, I must look like, really extra helpful today, or something!

Jason: I think it's more that you just look so much like a mom.

Amy: Do I look like I drive a minivan? Because I don't. Yet. Seriously, the back seats FOLD INTO THE FLOOR, OH MY GOD.

***

We've been pricing up laptops for awhile now -- the Macbook's motherfuckingboard was going to cost a motherfucking fortune to fix, plus it seemed like the water damage was pretty damn catastrophic, and the repair couldn't guarantee that other inside-techie things hadn't shorted out -- and I was resigned to buying a cheaper non-Mac, because. Well. Cheaper. I officially put off the purchase waaaay too long, leading to lost posts and enormous amounts of frustration once the mouse key broke, randomly moving the cursor to different parts of the screen while I typed gaaaaaaaaah kill.

So on Thursday we went to the Big Box Computer Store and I glumly pecked on some keyboards and finally declared one "pretty okay." I knew we could get it cheaper online though, so we didn't buy it.

On Friday -- before any of this other stuff happened, even though Jason probably knew it was a pretty safe bet that I would make stupid jokes out in public, that I would bug him about taking me to Ikea, that I would wander around stores looking like a frumpy, frizzy, minivan-lusting mom -- he came home from work and pulled a brand-new Macbook out of his briefcase. I was stunned.

Jason: You use it every day. It's what you do. It's important. You should have the one you want.

Our anniversary is in a few days. Eleven years. Our life is nothing like the one we thought we'd have once upon a time.

(I still have the one I want.)

23 Minutes

Dear Well-Meaning People At Our Vet's Office,

I know. I KNOW. He LOOKS CUTE. He's all blondish and be-dimpled, dressed up exactly like a real live human being with the polo and the shorts and the sandals. He'll tell you his name and his dog's name and his baby brother's name (though probably not in the same order you asked the questions). In other words, he LOOKS like the kind of kid you can win over with stickers and small plastic dog figurines...and inviting him into the back while you administer our dog's Bordetella vaccine sounds like a great idea, except for the part where you can't and it totally fucking isn't.

I don't know. I DON'T KNOW. He loves stickers! Especially circle stickers! Small plastic choking hazards are his FAVORITE! I don't know why today he's decided that stickers are the equivalent of putting dirty Band-Aids on his shirt and small plastic dog figurines are like, beneath him or something, God, and why his only true love in the world is your ceramic business card holder. Wait. That one I know. Because it is 1) Breakable, and 2) FULL OF A MILLION AND ONE FUCKING BUSINESS CARDS.

I do know a little more. See? He's three-and-a-half. Probably closer to four than I ever let myself admit, because FOUR. That's a PERSON. That's...not this kid right here, who is shrieking that I DON'T NEED TO LIKE TO READ A BOOK NO THANK YOU when I offer him something from your dog-eared collection of dog-themed children's books as an alternative to the business card holder. He is both acting his age and totally NOT acting his age, and I hope and pray this is just kind of part being this age. Dear God. He also, for the record, loves books, although today has been one of those fucking days where I would secretly like to fashion some kind of helmet that beams Yo Gabba Gabba directly into his brain if it would make him sit still and stop rolling around on the fur-covered floor like the Incredible Human Swiffer With Extra Whining Power.

(You're welcome for the clean floors, though. Don't mention it, we're just happy to help.)

I must admit to bullshitting you when I was all, "Noah, be GENTLE with Ceiba's leash, remember how I showed you? Don't pull on her, be GENTLE. You know better." Confession: I've never shown him how to walk the dog on her leash because he refuses to even acknowledge her waffle-stealing existence 99% of the time, like, I'm not even sure he's aware that we have a dog. I think he considers her more on par with an annoying battery-powered blinky-bloopy toy, and he has never ONCE been so fascinated with her leash and walking her around in circles as he is today and honestly I'm starting to wonder if maybe another mother and I got our children mixed up in the parking lot.

Please don't offer to let him go in the back with you please don't offer to let him go in the back with you please don't, oh crap. You did. Okay, watch this; it's really cool. I'll try to say "No, let's stay out here and wait together, okay?" and see how many words I can get out of my mouth before the screaming starts.

Three words! It's a personal best!

Fine. We'll go in the back -- path of least resistance and all, and a fierce desire to GET OUT OF HERE ALIVE -- and oh, look. There's dogs and cats in cages! He would like to stick his hand in those cages, and then he would like to run around and collide into pricey medical equipment. This is a TERRIFIC IDEA. You can tell that the vet thinks so too! Hi, Doctor. Yeah. It's us. There's an olde ancient Internet acronym for your facial expression. Double You Tee Eff, I believe it is called.

Okay! The vaccine took all of 30 seconds, which TOTALLY made this entire transition to the back room necessary and time to go back out front, Noah! Noah? Get...git...over here...now...hiss...gah...I will PUT YOU in the cone of shame, child, I KNOW they make them for your neck measurement I swear to...

Okay! Time to pay, make follow-up appointments at which I will feel deathly guilty over the state of my pets' dental hygeine, yep, I'd love a reminder card, something to look forward to! This! All over again! And oh God, please let the sticker thing go, I don't know WHY he's being such an ass about the sticker and I'm just all around mortified by this entire excursion and...wait...what are you asking him about?

Are we going to the bea...SHIT SHIT DON'T SAY IT DON'T SAY THAT WORD STOP.

Oh, hell. Yes, we needed the Bordetella because we're going to the b-e-a-c-h. On Friday. Which means it's totally not something we've mentioned to the c-h-i-l-d yet, because...well, never mind. I'm just going to crumble a couple of your business cards into earplugs for the ride home when he realizes we're NOT going to the beach right now and thinks that he's being punished for not being a good boy and perhaps I'll let him think that. Or not. I haven't had time to process my remaining patience level.

In summary, Well-Meaning People At Our Vet's Office, please accept my official and heartfelt apology for bringing an unhinged class five tornado onto your premises. Especially without a leash. He's really not usually like this, except for whenever it matters. THEN HE IS PRECISELY LIKE THIS. Thank you for maintaining that you found him utterly adorable, right up until the moment we left. Though I also wouldn't blame you if you're totally blogging about us right now.

Sincerely,
Amy

PS. I am also sorry that my dog has such a weird, unpronouncable name. Before her next visit I'll train her to respond to Sheba or Sayiba or something like that.

PPS. He really did cry the whole way home about the beach. It was kind of sad, since I do still like him a whole lot, in spite of everything. I wasn't mean about it and tried to explain that we're still going, just not today, but it didn't really do any good. Turns out he mostly just needed a nap. This has since been rectified. Within 30 seconds of getting back home. With extreme prejudice. And door locks.

PPPS. The little one sure was cute, right? HE liked your stickers.

PPPPS. Though for future reference, eight-month-old babies should not be given stickers. Particularly eight-month-old babies who belong to harebrained, distracted mothers who are trying to wrangle a sobbing preschooler and a freaked-out hamsterdog who just wanted to wind her leash around everybody's fucking legs, because she might not notice until much later that the sticker has mysteriously vanished. He's going to poop it out momentarily, I just know it. I wonder if we'll still be able tell what brand of heartworm pills provided the stickers! Oooh, suspense!

Forward Motion

A couple people inquired about the shoe box obstacle course I mentioned in yesterday's post. Yes, I was totally holding out on you. BEHOLD THE THRILLS:

Seven -- count 'em! -- SEVEN entire whole shoe boxes of various cheap-to-middling-quality shoe brands, each filled with wonder, excitement...and ADVENTURE.

Okay, more like "filled with cotton balls, dried beans, crumpled-up paper and packing peanuts."

This is a motor planning activity from The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun. The boxes can be filled with pretty much any textured material -- carpet, sand, buttons - and arranged in different ways, depending on your desired level of difficulty.

End to end in a straight line (forcing your child to put one foot down in front of the other) is slightly tougher than spaced out and staggered. So to start, I've put them near a wall to help Noah keep his balance. (He's wearing his socks because otherwise he gets too preoccupied with picking beans and packing peanuts from the bottom of his feet.)

After some practice, we try it using only one finger on the wall. And then...

Ta-da! No hands! Hooray!

Aaaaand. That's the shoe box obstacle course. Make one of your very own today! Mine would ideally contain booze and hot fudge, although instead of stepping in it I would just drink it, because I would replace the shoeboxes with a margarita glass and a bowl. Because I am a planner who thinks ahead.

***

In other, more fearsome mobility news, the baby (who as of last night demonstrated exactly ZERO interest in anything but sitting) has spent all damn day scooting all over the damn place on his belly and knees. The only way to thwart him seems to be moving him off the hardwoods and onto the carpet.

So thwart him, I did.

NO. I THWART THEE.

Ceiba demonstrates her own scooting-slash-yoga move. This is the Deboned Chicken.

Ezra responds with the Horizontal Spiderman.

And then moves effortlessly into the I Will Be Crawling By Monday So Lock Up Your Daughters, Your Stray Electrical Cords & The Millions Of Choking Hazards In That Shoe Box Obstacle Course, Oh Crap.

Home Sweet Wine Rack

Well. So. Despite the weirdest trip to New York ever and a brief detour into FOOD POISONING*, I am back at home, finally. What's this thing, here, on my lap? A com...pooter? Internetty? Blawgs? Twitter? Facebook? Twitface? What the fuck?

Noah's Easter egg hunt this morning consisted of a dozen plastic eggs filled with pennies and leftover Halloween candy. I am pretty sure this might be a new record in half-assing.

Big shout-out to my sister, who so nicely provided little Easter baskets for both of my children, without which my children would have received NO Easter baskets, because you know what you get when you go to Target the day before Easter in hopes of stocking an Easter basket? You get empty shelves and some irregular bunny cupcake mix. Possibly some Christmas tinsel.

I did eat both of the Cadbury Creme Eggs from the baskets, though. I had to. Those things are terrible for children.

Noah has been wearing an Easter sticker on his nose all day. I don't know why. It's like his parents let him eat chocolate lollipops for breakfast, or something.

Ezra did not get any chocolate, but he did wake up with a whole other tooth. So that's also something. Something straight from the bowels of HELL, that is. But still, something.

And now, a Ball Poppers Are Serious Business Interlude:

The It's Past Noon But We're Still In Our Jammies Brain Trust begins the experiment.

One's an engineer in the making, while the other has spotted his reflection in the TV cabinet.

Dude, I think a ball rolled over this way oh wait look my thumb yay never mind.

*Oh, but more on THAT LATER. ACK.

The Tuesday Redirect

So my maternity leave officially ends this week, all around. Just in time for all our family to depart and for me to suddenly be thrust into solo double-hammer-time parenting for the very first time. Not really sure which rocket scientist worked THAT schedule out. Oh, wait, it was me. Right. Okay.

*wanders off stage right, audience hears muffled cries of "STUPID, STUPID" and some head-slapping sound effects*

Ahem. Anyway! I'm back at the Advice Smackdown (thanks to Sarah of Whoorl and Kelly of Mocha Momma for filling in the last couple guest-author spots), although I admit I'll be cheating a bit longer by only answering easy questions. So those of you who have submitted questions that require actual brain power and thinking, well...you just hold onto your horses there, missy. I'd say it'll be at least mid-December before my mind catches up to my typing fingers. In the meantime, mush and nonsense, ahoy!

Baby sucking on Daddy's pinkie finger = mush.

Baby wearing floppy-eared puppy booties = nonsense

And on that note, this week's Time & Money-Saving Tip is up at the Luvs MomSpeak site. It's about pee-pee. Yes, it is. I'm certainly not expecting another 136 comments on a post about pee-pee, but you have to admit that would be pretty awesome. (NOTE: If the sight of the word "pee-pee" triggers your gag reflex, the post also includes a photo of my cleavage. See? Something for everyone!)

For those of you interested in neither babies nor cleavage = hamsterdog

Homeward Bound in Sixty Seconds

This morning, my dog -- the dog I frequently threaten to give away and/or skin into a mitten, the dog who sees an open baby gate as a chance to poop in the basement, YAY BASEMENT POOPING IS THE FUNNEST POOPING OF ALL POOPING, who has apparently also been occasionally peeing on our dining room rug, and we didn't even realize that until we each grabbed a corner of it this weekend to move it to the other side of the room, OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT SMELL, the dog who eats the cat's food and steals waffles right off my child's plate, the dog who barks herself senseless every damn day when the mail comes and thinks all our guests are made out of ham, the dog who is the biggest eight-pound pain in the ass on the planet -- escaped out of our backyard.

We'd been calling for her inside the house -- I'd let her out in a half-asleep stupor and couldn't really remember letting her out. Did I let her out? There's waffles on the table and she's not frantically head-butting the back door to get at the waffles, so I must not have let her out. We muttered curse words about the baby gate and the basement but she wasn't there. We prodded her bed with our feet and poked lumps under our covers and kept listening for the sound of her collar. Noah happily mimicked our confused calls from the breakfast table. I opened the door to scan the backyard for what felt like the 10th time and finally noticed that the gate was open, just a little bit.

I screamed that the gate was open. Jason asked me what did I mean the gate was open. I screamed again that THE. GATE. WAS. OPEN.

I ran outside our house in a pair of nursing pajamas and Jason's Crocs, shouting her name, staring at the empty street and sidewalks and vast dog-less expanses of other people's yards, baffled that she wasn't patiently waiting by our front door like she has every time we've accidentally locked her outside when she slipped by our feet while we brought in groceries.

I ran this way and that, my voice echoing a little, blood pounding in my ears. My voice sounded weird and panicked as I called and called for her. Ceiba. Ceiba. Ceiba. Baby girl. Little dog. Please please please.

I rounded our fence corner and suddenly, there she was. Running towards me. She stopped a few feet away, probably trying to size up the heapload of trouble she was in, but it only made me start to cry and flash to every nightmare I've ever had about trying to catch a runaway pet. You see them, they stop, you're so close and then they bolt away again, and that's usually right when you discover that your shoes are made of cement.

She stopped for only a few seconds though, before closing the distance between us and letting me scoop her up. She smelled wet. Her paws were muddy and left footprints all over my giant belly. I took her back inside, where Jason was still struggling to put on pants and I realized that the whole terrible search ordeal had probably only lasted a minute or two.

She heard my voice, she came running. Like a good, good dog.

Totally scored herself a post-traumatic stress waffle afterward.

34 Weeks

Yes, yes, I know, I know. I'm getting dangerously close to the point where I simply cannot go a day without at least posting that yes, there is no baby yet and all is well with my womb. I'm sorry. It's just that the baby's sock drawer is not going to repeatedly arrange and rearrange itself, y'all.

I've also been blowing my writerly load via dozens of long emails to my husband, since we've learned that we are only allowed to argue about politics via electronic methods. Otherwise we get a tad...shrill with each other, as during major election years our usually happy existence as independents ends, and we retreat to our separate party corners and hiss and spit and furiously send each other links that SO TOTALLY prove that the other person is a complete fucking idiot.

And while I usually just end up defaulting to the surefire "I am never sleeping with you again unless you pull your head at least PARTWAY out of your ass," I'm thinking that's not going to be particularly effective this time.

I mean, check OUT this slammin' physique. Wouldn't YOU be okay with letting the Bush tax cuts expire as planned in 2010 for a chance at that ass?

That's what I thought, suckahs. (And that IS a maternity tank. Those extra four inches of visible fishbelly are so fierce.)

If current "plans" hold -- and oh, I do so love using the word "plans" in regard to ANYTHING birth-related, since it makes me think of "birth plans" and how all the pregnancy books list that as something one should pack for the hospital ("darling, can you please fetch me my chapstick, Yanni CD and seven-page birth plan from the suitcase? It's in the front pocket. No, that's the back-up copy, I mean the one I had laminated.") --  I'll be having this baby in about five weeks.

And...we feel ready, more or less. Oh sure, we still haven't gotten all the various baby gear down from the attic yet and I'm still only assuming that the car seat is where I think I left it, and a full inventory of Noah's infant hand-me-downs reveals a horrifying shortage of 3-6 month sized feetie jammies but...eh. We're ready. We've been gripped with crazy baby fever over the past few weeks, which is convenient! What timing!

Whenever we see someone out and about with an infant, our conversations go something like this:

NOM, I say. SMUSHY BABY THERE MMMM.

GOOD, Jason says, SQUAWKY NEWBORN CHOMP.

Then we nod and go back to gnawing on bones and bitching about Geico ads. (And short- vs. long-term solutions to the energy crisis and Iraq timetables and OH MY GOD SARAH PALIN.)

I'm not sure when it happened -- the 3D ultrasound, the crazy visible kicks and rolls and undulations of mah belleh, the discovery of baby socks that look like shoes, the temporary threat that things might in fact NOT be as perfect and surefire as we thought? I don't know. But here we are, at 34 weeks, and we are finally able to have a conversation about The Baby that doesn't involve a heaping hot dose of TERROR and WHAT HAVE WE DONE? Undo! Ctrl-Z!

My only frustration is that we don't have a name. (Jason changed his mind. Don't even get me started. He changed his mind but has not offered a single usable alternative and WOW, YOU MIGHT EVEN SAY HE FLIP-FLOPPED, MUCH LIKE A CERTAIN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE.) (Okay, I'll stop now.) Jason wants to name the baby after he's here, in the hospital. Which is fine, except that I secretly continue to use "the name" in my head and I seriously doubt I'll be able to think of him as anything else, but I have decided to exert my energy elsewhere. The aforementioned sock drawer. The search for the perfect coming-home outfit, which is driving Jason crazy because I think I have rejected every pair of blue feetie jammies in the tri-state area as being either 1) Not special enough, 2) Too frou-frou, 3) Not boyish enough, 4) Too boyish, oh my God, my newborn is not coming home clad in MONSTER TRUCKS, and 5) I dunno, I just don't think raccoons are the statement I'd like to make on the birth announcements. Don't you have something in a teddy bear motif?

And...Jesus, I should stop before I make our household sound ANY MORE INSANE.

Quick! Look! Pet photos!

Way to keep it classy there, everybody.

Things. Lots of Things.

THINGS I AM TERRIBLE AT:

1) Choosing the correct-sized plastic container for storing leftovers

2) The metric system

3) Closing dresser drawers all the way

4) Painting my own toenails

5) Anything involving the post office

THINGS THAT ARE CURRENTLY BUGGING ME A LOT:

1) That damn haircut

2) Our defective Wii

    a) Which would scratch a ring onto every game we played after a few hours of use.

    b) Which would render the game completely unplayable.

    c) Usually right at some critical moment, like right when you were about to fight Darth Maul in Lego Star Wars.

    d) Which you were totally kicking ass on, by the way.

    f) And yeah, I know it's geared for 10-year-olds, I WAS STILL RULING AT IT.

    g) Anyway, we'll probably get our repaired console back in about six weeks.

3) No one around here who is not gestating is willing to move furniture around and get the new baby's room set up.

    a) Or help me with my plan to rearrange the dining room, which I also feel is an essential pre-baby endeavor.

4) This irrational feeling that our ultrasound wasn't completely definitive and we're actually having a girl.

5) Also ants. In the kitchen. I hate ants.

THINGS MY DOG HAS EATEN WITH NARY A SINGLE NEGATIVE EFFECT:

1) Chocolate cake

2) Chocolate Easter candy

3) Four paper towels

4) Seven butter wrappers

5) Approximately 428 crayons

6) A roach trap

7) Packing peanuts

8) Shoes of various materials and price points

9) An entire bag of baby spinach

10) Houseplants

PLACES I FOUND TRACES OF THAT ENTIRE BAG OF STALE HAMBURGER BUNS SHE ATE:

1) Laundry pile

2) Linen closet

3) Under decorative throw pillow

4) All over living room floor

5) Bottom of my foot

Bite me, Atkins.